I just got it yesterday, but I am devouring Tim Chester and Steve Timmis’ book total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community. Here are a couple of nice quotes:
From pp. 15-16 on what the book’s about:
This book argues that two key principles should shape the way we “do church”: gospel and community. Christians are called to a dual fidelity: fidelity to the core content of the gospel and fidelity to the primary context of a believing community. Whether we are thinking about evangelism, social involvement, pastoral care, apologetics, discipleship, or teaching, the content is consistently the Christian gospel, and the context is consistently the Christian community. What we do is always defined by the gospel, and the context is always our belonging to the church. Our identity as Christians is defined by the gospel and community.
From p.35 quoting from Chris Wright’s book The Mission of God and how a God-centered missions perspective opens our eyes to the big picture, rather than the selfish confines of our own little worlds…
We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?,” when the real question is “Where does my little life fit into this great story of God’s mission?”
We want to be driven by a purpose that has been tailored just right for our own individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
We talk about “applying the Bible to our lives.” What would it mean to apply our lives to the Bible instead, assuming the Bible to be the reality–the real story–to which we are called to conform ourselves?
We wrestle with “making the gospel relevant to the world.” But in this story, God is about the business of transforming the world to fit the shape of the gospel.
We argue about what can legitimately be included in the mission that God expects from the church, when we should ask what kind of church God wants for the whole range of his mission.
I may be wondering what kind of mission God has for me, when I should be asking what kind of me God wants for his mission.
And finally, I loved this quote from a report in the UK on reaching culture (p.36 in total Church):
The vast majority of Christians have not been helped to see that who they are and what they do every day in schools, workplaces or clubs is significant to God, nor that the people they spend time with in those everyday contexts are the people God is calling them to pray for, bless, and witness to. So we pray for our Sunday School teachers but not, for example, for schoolteachers working 40 hours a week in schools among children and adults who on the whole don’t know Jesus. We pray for overseas missionaries but not for Christian electricians, builders, shop assistants and managers in towns…We have simply not been envisioned, resourced and supported to share the Good News of Jesus in our everyday contexts.
These thoughts are some of the same things I’ve been thinking about prayerfully for a while, so coming across these things seems to be confirmation that the Lord is up to something. I’ll try and give further snippets as I continue reading.